On Style: Spectacles...

This section may be irrelevant to you.

Do not do a Clark Kent and wear fake prescription glasses because you like the look. It is not worth the embarrassment of being found out, which will happen the second somebody asks to try on your glasses (which should be within five nanoseconds of you debuting your faux blindness in public).

I have a very weak prescription for my left eye. I only use my glasses when reading black on white on an electric, backlit or projected screen. Without my glasses correcting some axial lisp I seem to have developed, my eyes go a googly – rolling in my head, flickering…the works. This is not a good look, so I have been forced to invest in some half-framed Police specs in brown.

Nice, but not at all naughty enough for my liking. Glasses are one of those things that can either draw the eye or turn it; they can be boring as sin – so boring you can forget anyone even bothering to appreciate the fineness of your tweed (take that as you will…) – or they can be outrageously riveting. Although in almost all regards I would plump for restraint, spectacles are one area I would go wild.

Ideally you should own a ‘sensible’ pair in black or, my favourite, tortoiseshell, in the right shape to accentuate your face (in a similar way to facial hair being able to work wonders with your mug, glasses can create illusions too), and a ‘jazzy’ pair.

Now, I’m not talking Tim Wonnacott – but it must be said, his glasses are cool, because he clearly loves them and gives so little of a shit about what you or I think, we have no choice but to assume he is right and that we are blazing buffoons for not owning in excess of fifty pairs of rainbow coloured reading glasses. Mad, aren’t we? – but I am advocating a similar strategy as employed by the Antiques Roadshow and Bargain Hunt regular.

Go wild with style. Preferably in a colourway that is transferable, but if not at least pick one you can wear with most of your favourite cloths comfortably.

You may notice, as I have done, that your wardrobe possesses a palette. Unsurprisingly, this is often your favourite colour and as long as that colour suits you better than all others, then that’s a good thing. I have seen many a woman obsessed with fuchsia pink, but unaware it makes her look like a rose bush or an inside-out whale. Shudder.

I have one brand name for you: Etnia Barcelona. Check them out. Find the style you like. Pick the colourway. Go nuts.


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